Osman Ali Atto

Osman Ali Atto (1940-5 August 2013) was a leader of the Somali National Alliance during the Somali Civil War.

Biography
Osman Ali Atto was born in 1940 in Mogadishu, Somalia, and he went from being a boy without running water to becoming a wealthy landowner; he owned many buildings that were rented to the media and relief agencies in Mogadishu. He also owned his own tanker truck company, and he was in charge of his own oil company by the time that the Somali Civil War broke out in 1991. Atto became the second-in-command of Mohamed Farrah Aidid, paying for housing and weapons for his fighters. Atto funded the militia through the trade and sale of hashish and khat, and he therefore became an enemy of the United Nations peacekeepers fighting against the Somali National Alliance's forces. Atto was tracked down by a tracker hidden in his cane, and he was captured by American troops after a firefight on 21 September 1993. He was later released, and he would later fight against Aidid in 1995 after Aidid proclaimed himself "President of Somalia". In 2006, he resigned from politics, and he supported the Islamic Courts Union's efforts to clear checkpoints in Mogadishu. However, he was briefly kidnapped by the ICU on 30 May 2006. Atto died in 2013.